Subject: ​Correct The Record Wednesday February 11, 2015 Afternoon Roundup
From: Burns Strider <[email-masked]>
To: CTRFriendsFamily <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2015 14:31:54 -0500
List-Id: <CTRFriendsFamily.americanbridge.org>

*​**Correct The Record Wednesday February 11, 2015 Afternoon Roundup:*

*Tweets:*

*Correct The Record* @CorrectRecord: .@HillaryClinton
<https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton> fought to prevent voter intimidation
#HRC365 <https://twitter.com/hashtag/HRC365?src=hash>
https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/senate-bill/4069/cosponsors …
<https://t.co/YS6qi1QtJZ> [2/11/15, 12:21 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/CorrectRecord/status/565561184540045312>]

*Pres. Bill Clinton* @billclinton: Tweeting is easier than birdie-ing!
Welcome @BHaasGolf <https://twitter.com/BHaasGolf>! [2/10/15, 11:07 p.m. EST
<https://twitter.com/billclinton/status/565361358955630592>]

*Headlines:*

*BuzzFeed: “Full Transcript Of BuzzFeed News’ Interview With President
Barack Obama”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeednews/full-transcript-of-buzzfeed-news-interview-with-president#.fm0xxr6N3>*

Pres. Obama: “Hillary Clinton I know much better than I know Jeb Bush, and
I think she’d be an outstanding president.”

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “This terrible poll shows Elizabeth Warren
beating Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/02/11/this-terrible-poll-shows-elizabeth-warren-beating-hillary-clinton/>*

“How do you get results so far afield of any polling we've seen to date?
You say a bunch of positive/liberal-friendly things about Warren before you
ask the head-to-head question.”

*The Hill blog: Briefing Room: “Paul: 'I blame' Clinton for ISIS conflict”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/232463-paul-i-blame-clinton-for-isis-conflict>*

“Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday accused former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton of helping to spur unrest in the Middle East that led to
the current battle against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria.”

*Washington Post column: Ruth Marcus: “Brian Williams needs to go”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/brian-williams-needs-to-go/2015/02/10/5b3d13be-b14e-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html?hpid=z5>*

“Clinton’s sniper-fire statement is, no doubt, a blot on her record. It is
not a disqualifying blot. Journalists come to the job with only their
credibility to offer. We expect less from politicians in terms of total
truth-telling. Spin is part of the business model. You could legitimately
decide that Clinton’s sniper story is disqualifying, but you must then deal
with Ronald Reagan witnessing the liberation of Nazi death camps. Either
way, the untenable nature of Williams’s position becomes even clearer.
Imagine that Clinton’s sniper story becomes a campaign issue. How does
Williams, in the anchor chair, comfortably report that news, even after six
months away?”

*Articles:*

*BuzzFeed: “Full Transcript Of BuzzFeed News’ Interview With President
Barack Obama”
<http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeednews/full-transcript-of-buzzfeed-news-interview-with-president#.fm0xxr6N3>*

[Interview by Ben Smith]

February 11, 2015, 12:13 a.m. EST

[Subtitle:] BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith sat down with President
Barack Obama. Twenty-two minutes, eighteen questions.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

*BuzzFeed News: So, eight years ago, today actually, you announced your
campaign in Springfield. I read that speech last night and I was struck by
how much it’s a generational call to your generation, I guess to some
degree mine. You use the word “generation” 13 times in the speech. Now, two
of the leading candidates for the next presidential nomination are of the
previous generation, and I wonder if you find that at all disappointing?*

President Obama: Well, they’re both obviously highly qualified candidates.
Hillary Clinton I know much better than I know Jeb Bush, and I think she’d
be an outstanding president. My understanding is that everybody else is
younger than me, which—

*Wasn’t that the idea?*

Obama: —I guess matches up with my gray hair. But, you know ultimately what
people are going to be looking for in the next president is what they
always look for in a president and that is somebody who is attuned to the
hopes and dreams of the American people at a particular moment in time.
When I ran in 2008, I think what people understood was that the middle
class had been left behind for a pretty long stretch of time. We had been
involved in very costly wars that didn’t seem to have necessarily made us
safer and they were looking for change and, you know, I suspect that the
next candidates are going to be grappling with some of the issues that I
talked about at the State of the Union: How can we make sure that we have
broad-based prosperity now that we’re out of crisis? How do we deal with
terrorism in a way that’s smart and effective? How do we address long-term
issues like climate change that sometimes are really hard to do
politically? So I think it will be a fascinating debate.

*You were elected with this new coalition of young people, people of color,
women, and I wonder, is that a coalition that the next Democratic nominee —
Hillary Clinton or not — inherits?*

Obama: I don’t think any president inherits a coalition. I think any
candidate has to win over people based on what they stand for, what their
message is, what their vision is for the future. I think what’s true is
that I’ve done very well among younger Americans, and that’s always been
something I’ve been very proud of: our ability to reach out to get people
involved who traditionally have not always gotten involved or have been
skeptical about politics. I think the fact that we got a lot of support
from African-Americans or Latinos or Asian-Americans is just reflective of
the shifts in the country. I think it’s also important to remember that I
won Iowa, which doesn’t have one of the most diverse populations in the
country. I think there’s been, you know, talk that there’s a need to reach
out more to older Americans or middle America or white working-class
families that Democrats haven’t done as well on, but that hasn’t been
unique to me, that’s been going on for a while.

*Do you think that’s right, that there is a need to reach out to them more?*

Obama: I absolutely do. I think that one of the biggest challenges in our
politics is always how do we get all of us to recognize what we have in
common. And there’s so many forces that push us apart. Race is just one of
them. You’ve got the rural-urban divide. You have states that are
traditionally very Republican versus very Democrat. North-South. But one of
the great things about being president is you travel around and it turns
out everybody’s struggling with the same things, everybody’s hoping for the
same things. People’s values are pretty common, and what I said during the
State of the Union is something I still believe, which is that we are more
unified than our politics would let on, and the question — particularly
during presidential elections — is can we get our politics to give voice to
those common things?

*If I can move on to the Affordable Care Act. We reported yesterday that
the office supply store Staples is — I’m sure this is an issue you’ve heard
about before — is telling its workers that it will fire them if they work
more than 25 hours a week. A manager had told a worker we talked to that
“Obama’s responsible for this policy,” and they’re putting these notices on
the wall of their break room saying that. I wonder what you’d say to the
CEO of Staples, Ronald Sargent, about that policy?*

Obama: What I would say is that millions of people are benefiting from the
Affordable Care Act. Satisfaction is high. The typical premium is less than
100 bucks.

*But this is a specific consequence…*

Obama: No, I’m gonna answer the question. And that there is no reason for
an employer who is not currently providing health care to their workers to
discourage them from either getting health insurance on the job or being
able to avail themselves of the Affordable Care Act. I haven’t looked at
Staples stock lately or what the compensation of the CEO is, but I suspect
that they could well afford to treat their workers favorably and give them
some basic financial security, and if they can’t, then they should be
willing to allow those workers to get the Affordable Care Act without
cutting wages. This is the same argument that I’ve made with respect to
something like paid sick leave. We have 43 million Americans who, if they
get sick or their child gets sick, are looking at either losing their
paycheck or going to the job sick or leaving their child at home sick. It’s
one thing when you’ve got a mom-and-pop store who can’t afford to provide
paid sick leave or health insurance or minimum wage to workers — even
though a large percentage of those small businesses do it because they know
it’s the right thing to do — but when I hear large corporations that make
billions of dollars in profits trying to blame our interest in providing
health insurance as an excuse for cutting back workers’ wages, shame on
them.

*Moving on to Russia. You started this presidency with a very productive
relationship with President Medvedev and the relations are now probably at
their worst since the Cold War. How much of that do you ascribe to Vladimir
Putin’s character?*

Obama: You know, I don’t want to psychoanalyze Mr. Putin. I will say that
he has a foot very much in the Soviet past. That’s how he came of age. He
ran the KGB. Those were his formative experiences. So I think he looks at
problems through this Cold War lens, and, as a consequence, I think he’s
missed some opportunities for Russia to diversify its economy, to
strengthen its relationship with its neighbors, to represent something
different than the old Soviet-style aggression. You know, I continue to
hold out the prospect of Russia taking a diplomatic offering from what
they’ve done in Ukraine. I think, to their credit, they’ve been able to
compartmentalize and continue to work with us on issues like Iran’s nuclear
program. But, if you look at what’s happened to the Russian economy, even
before oil prices collapsed, it is not an economy that’s built for the 21st
century. Unfortunately, those forces for modernization inside of Russia, I
think, have been sidelined. That’s bad for Russia and, over time, it’s bad
for the United States, because if Russia is doing badly, the concern is
that they revert to old expansionist ideas that really shouldn’t have any
application in the 21st century.

*We asked our readers [for] questions and we got a lot of questions about
weed. One guy, Shawn Gould from Wilmington, it’s a familiar situation. He
has a felony marijuana possession conviction, so he can’t get a job. He
said he can’t get a job at Boston Market. A kind of problem that
disproportionately affects young black men like him. This is obviously a
policy challenge you’ve spent your whole career — one of them — thinking
about, but you’ve been president for six years. What do you say to him?*

Obama: We have tried to begin a process of reforming how we deal with
nonviolent drug offenses, starting with Eric Holder, our attorney general,
providing different criteria for evaluation for U.S. attorneys, suggesting
to them they don’t always just have to charge the maximum in order for them
to do a good job. In fact, sometimes it’s more appropriate to look at
whether a charge against a nonviolent drug offender is the right charge. We
are reaching out to judges and lawyers — both prosecutors and defense bar —
to look at how we can begin to more systematically change sentencing when
it comes to nonviolent drug offenses. We’ve revamped the pardoning office
in the Justice Department because, traditionally, we weren’t reaching a lot
of nonviolent offenders who, if they received a pardon, perhaps would be in
a better position to get employed. Overall — and the final thing is our
office of drug prevention policy, one of the things we’re trying to do is
move off just an enforcement/incarceration strategy more to a public
health, treatment strategy. When you look at the progress we’ve made in
reducing teen smoking, for example, or promoting seatbelt use: It’s not
because we criminalize things, alone — although in the case of seatbelts,
obviously, you can get a ticket — a lot of it just had to do with public
education. The same is true on drug abuse. Unfortunately, we’ve
short-changed that side and the consequences have been particularly
devastating in certain segments of the community that need to be addressed.

*I want to move to the big LGBT news of yesterday, but first we had a very
specific question from a reader who worked for you, a federal lawyer who’s
transgender named Emily Prince. Federal policy bars discrimination against
transgender people under health care plans covered under the ACA, but
federal worker plans largely don’t cover gender reassignment surgery.
Should they?*

Obama: You know, I haven’t looked at that policy. My general view is that
transgender persons, just like gays and lesbians, are deserving of equal
treatment under the law. And that’s a basic principle. As you mentioned, my
sense is that the Supreme Court is about to make a shift, one that I
welcome, which is to recognize that — having hit a critical mass of states
that have recognized same-sex marriage — it doesn’t make sense for us to
now have this patchwork system and that it’s time to recognize that, under
the equal protection clause of the United States, same-sex couples should
have the same rights as anybody else.

*There are a few officials in Alabama, starting with Judge Roy Moore, but
also a number of probate judges, who are resisting that. Do you see shades
of George Wallace in the schoolhouse door?*

Obama: Well, I… look, I won’t… I won’t say it’s a perfect analogy, but
there’s a core principle here that’s at stake, which is we have a supremacy
clause in our constitution. When federal law is in conflict with state law,
federal law wins out. My understanding — my recollection is that Judge
Moore had a similar problem with a federal court ruling that you couldn’t
put a huge Ten Commandments statue in the middle of your courthouse and,
ultimately, federal law was obeyed, and I think that the same thing will
end up happening here.

*Is there anything you’d say to him?*

Obama: You know, I think that the courts at the federal level will have
something to say to him.

*David Axelrod wrote in his book that you hated and weren’t good at, he
said, “bullshitting” about your position on marriage in ‘08. Why did you
feel you had to do it?*

Obama: Well, you know, I think David is mixing up my personal feelings with
my position on the issue. I always felt that same-sex couples should be
able to enjoy the same rights, legally, as anybody else, and so it was
frustrating to me not to, I think, be able to square that with what were a
whole bunch of religious sensitivities out there. So my thinking at the
time was that civil unions — which I always supported — was a sufficient
way of squaring the circle. That, OK, we won’t call it “marriage,” we’ll
call it “civil unions,” same-sex couples will have the same rights as
anybody else, but the word “marriage” with its religious connotations
historically would be preserved for marriages between men and women. Where
my evolution took place was not in my attitude toward same-sex couples, it
was in understanding the pain and the sense of stigma that was being placed
on same-sex couples who are friends of mine, where they’d say, “You know
what, if you’re not calling it marriage, it doesn’t feel like the same
thing. Even if you gave me the same rights, the fact that I’m being treated
differently or the love that we feel is somehow segmented off, that hurts.”
It was because of those conversations that I ended up shifting positions,
that civil unions, in fact, were not sufficient rather than marriage. But I
think the notion that somehow I was always in favor of marriage per se
isn’t quite accurate. What I was in favor of is making sure that…

*Despite that old questionnaire?*

Obama: Well, yeah. The old questionnaire, you know, is an example of
struggling with what was a real issue at the time, which is how do you make
sure that people’s rights are enjoyed and these religious sensitivities
were taken into account? You know, these are the kinds of things you learn
as you… move forward in public life: that sometimes you can’t split the
difference. That sometimes you just have to be very clear that this is
what’s right. And what I’m very proud of is to see how rapidly the country
has shifted and maybe the small part that I’ve played, but certainly my
Justice Department and others have played, in this administration in
getting to where we need to be.

*I have sort of an organizing question about that, which is if you talk to
people who were involved in your initial coalition — you have labor union
activists, civil rights activists, environmentalists, and LGBT rights
activists — it’s the LGBT rights activists right now who feel most totally
fulfilled by your administration, by what you’ve done. I wonder, did they
do something right? Did they push you harder? Or was it just their moment
and it really wasn’t about what they did?*

Obama: Yeah, I, you know, I think it was a matter of… It was an idea whose
time had come. I also think that, unlike sometimes issues of race or even
in some cases economic status, I think that there are a lot of people,
including Supreme Court justices, who have somebody in their family or
somebody that they know who’s gay and, as more and more people came out of
the closet and they said, “Well, gosh, well, I love that person.” It
changed—

*So you don’t give the organized community credit as much as the cultural
change?*

Obama: Well, no no no. I mean, I think the organized community did an
excellent job. But, look, the immigrants’ rights organizations have done an
excellent job, the civil rights organizations have done an excellent job. I
think that a lot of it had to do with the willingness of people to
recognize the regard they had for the LGBT communities or people in their
families. But part of it is also, frankly, that an issue like
nondiscrimination for the LGBT community is a little bit easier than the
issues of inner-city poverty, right? You not discriminating against a gay
person may require you to undergo some change of mind, but it doesn’t
require you to potentially — calling on the government to provide more
support for impoverished children so that they’ve got day care that’s high
quality.

*We’ve just got a couple more minutes and there are a couple national
security questions I wanted to get in in that time. First, lot of
complicated parts in this surveillance debate, but there’s one thing you
could do with the stroke of the pen, which is ending the bulk collection of
metadata. Why haven’t you?*

Obama: Well, what we’ve done is called on Congress to create a program that
preserves what we need in order to fight against potential terror attacks
on the homeland while addressing the concerns of privacy critics and
libertarians.

*But why not stop the program now?*

Obama: Well, because I’m still hopeful that we can actually get a bill
passed… You know, there is bipartisan support for the bill, and, as has
been true in a lot of instances, including on immigration, my preference is
always to actually get legislation passed because it’s a little longer
lasting.

*And finally I wanted to ask you about Kayla Mueller. She was confirmed
dead today, and I wondered both if you had any reaction to her murder and,
really, how do you tell a family that the United States government is not
going to do all it can or we have a policy of not doing all we can in these
situations?*

Obama: Well, first of all, my immediate reaction is heartbreak. I’ve been
in touch with Kayla’s family. She was an outstanding young woman and a
great spirit, and I think that spirit will live on. I think the more people
learn about her, the more they appreciate what she stood for and how it
stands in contrast with the barbaric organization that held her captive.
But I don’t think it’s accurate then to say that the United States
government hasn’t done everything that we could. We devoted enormous
resources — and always devote enormous resources — to freeing captives or
hostages anywhere in the world, and I deployed an entire operation at
significant risk to rescue not only her, but the other individuals that had
been held, and probably missed them by a day or two precisely because we
had that commitment. The one thing that we have held to is a policy of not
paying ransoms with an organization like ISIL. And the reason is that once
we start doing that, not only are we financing their slaughter of innocent
people and strengthening their organization, but we’re actually making
Americans even greater targets for future kidnappings… You know, it’s as
tough as anything that I do, having conversation with parents who
understandably want — by any means necessary — for their children to be
safe, and we will do everything we can, short of providing an incentive for
future Americans to be caught.

*And I understand the policy review underway, you’re ruling out ransoms. Is
anything even being considered there?*

Obama: Just as a general rule, what we don’t want to do is make other
American citizens riper targets for the actions of organizations like this.

*Washington Post blog: The Fix: “This terrible poll shows Elizabeth Warren
beating Hillary Clinton”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/02/11/this-terrible-poll-shows-elizabeth-warren-beating-hillary-clinton/>*

By Aaron Blake

February 11, 2015, 12:04 p.m. EST

MoveOn.org wants Elizabeth Warren to run for president -- so much so that
it has commissioned a poll with the very clear purpose of making Warren's
potential candidacy look as good as possible.

Mission accomplished. The just-released poll from YouGov shows Warren ahead
of Clinton 31 percent to 24 percent in Iowa and 30-27 in New Hampshire.

How do you get results so far afield of any polling we've seen to date? You
say a bunch of positive/liberal-friendly things about Warren before you ask
the head-to-head question.

In fairness to MoveOn, the group discloses up-front that this is what's
known as an "informed ballot" -- i.e. information is shared about
candidates before the head-to-head question is asked. MoveOn emphasizes
that no negative information is shared about the other candidates
(including Clinton), which is a trick often used in such polling.

What MoveOn doesn't disclose is that the only candidate for whom positive
information is shared is Warren. And there is a lot of positive information
-- 10 statements, in fact.

A sampling:

·         "Elizabeth Warren wants to extend the same low interest rates
that the federal government gives big Wall Street banks to college students
who receive government loans for their education."

·         "The absolute last thing we should do (to Social Security) is
allow the program to begin to be dismantled inch by inch. We should be
talking about expanding Social Security benefits -- not cutting them."

·         "No one should be above the law. If you steal a hundred bucks on
Main Street, you’re probably going to jail. If you steal a billion bucks on
Wall Street, you darn well better go to jail too."

·         "People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here’s
the painful part: they’re right.... Oil companies guzzle down billions in
profits. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries."

·         "Sen. Warren says, 'I came out of a hardworking, middle-class
family. I came from an America that created opportunities for people like
me, and I now see an America where the government works for people who
already have money and power.... We need to remind politicians that they
don’t work for the big banks -- they work for us.'"

·         The takeaway here: If Warren runs for president and is somehow
able to run a campaign in which she is the only candidate allowed to share
positive information about herself, then she might -- emphasis on might --
have a chance of beating Clinton.

If anything, this poll should discourage Warren from changing her mind and
running.

Here's the poll, in case you want to explore:

[POLL]

*The Hill blog: Briefing Room: “Paul: 'I blame' Clinton for ISIS conflict”
<http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/232463-paul-i-blame-clinton-for-isis-conflict>*

By Ben Kamisar

February 11, 2015, 12:30 p.m. EST

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday accused former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton of helping to spur unrest in the Middle East that led to
the current battle against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and
Syria.

“One of the people I blame for a lot of this, frankly, is Hillary Clinton,”
he said on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

“The disaster that is Libya is now a breeding ground for terrorists and
also a breeding ground for armament. I really do blame Hillary Clinton’s
war in Libya for creating a lot of the chaos that is now spreading
throughout the Middle East.”

Paul has repeatedly needled Clinton ahead of the two politicians’ potential
2016 bids, this time when host Bill Hemmer asked for his take on President
Obama’s proposed authorization to fight ISIS, sent to Congress Wednesday.
The proposal includes vague language that limits the president from
“enduring offensive ground combat” but would allow him to authorize limited
ground operations and have soldiers target ISIS forces and their associates.

But the plan hasn’t been welcomed with open arms on Capitol Hill. Some
Democratic lawmakers told The Hill that the language may still be too
broad, while Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement that he’s
concerned the president’s language isn’t broad enough to give “our military
commanders the flexibility and authorities they need.”

While Paul said “the president has to do much more” to combat ISIS, and
that America should consider directly arming Kurdish fighters on the
ground, he admitted that there has been some improvement.

“They have been pushed back,” he said about ISIS. “I don’t think they are
gaining ground."

But he pivoted back to Clinton and said that her push to arm rebels in
Syria fighting against President Bashar Assad helped bring weapons into
“the hands of ISIS," and criticized her for unrest in Libya.

“I think Hillary’s war in Libya and then Hillary’s admonition, the
president’s admonition, and frankly some Republicans' admonition to get
involved in the Syrian civil war has actually now created a bigger problem,
which is ISIS,” he said.

*Washington Post column: Ruth Marcus: “Brian Williams needs to go”
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/brian-williams-needs-to-go/2015/02/10/5b3d13be-b14e-11e4-827f-93f454140e2b_story.html?hpid=z5>*

By Ruth Marcus

February 10, 2015, 7:27 p.m. EST

Indecision may not be the best quality in a columnist, but in the case of
NBC News anchor Brian Williams, that’s what I find in myself: I doubt that
the six-month suspension the network announced Tuesday night is enough, and
I think he needs to step down.

My hesitation over asserting that Williams cannot continue in the anchor
chair has two components. The first is simple human compassion. Williams
seems like a nice guy, with an endearing capacity for poking fun at
himself. Those who are enjoying his predicament must be more certain about
their own infallibility than I am about mine. Kicking people when they’re
up is a lot more sporting than when they’re in a fetal crouch. A six-month
suspension is pretty severe.

The second, which gives me far more pause and necessitates the antiquated
practice of trial before sentencing, is the essential mystery of memory. We
may sincerely believe what did not actually happen.

For years my friend Amanda Bennett told the story of attending the wrong
wedding, only to realize her mistake when a bride she didn’t know walked
down the aisle. One day Amanda recounted this tale, only to be informed, by
the friend to whom the wedding escapade had actually happened , that it
wasn’t her story at all. Amanda had somehow appropriated it as her own. It
was too good not to retell.

Amanda is smart and tough and an experienced journalist — a former big-city
newspaper editor. Her reporting in this instance was sincere but faulty, in
the service not of self-promotion but of self-deprecation.

Science supports this possibility. False memories take root. Fragments of
experience recombine and emerge as falsehoods — not deliberate lies but
untrue nonetheless. This is why the entire context matters so much in
Williams’s case: Is his tale of being in a helicopter under fire another
example of shifting, faulty memory, or is it part of a pattern of puffery,
including Hurricane Katrina? The latter would undercut the likelihood that
the helicopter story was a moment of memory gone haywire.

Assume, though, that the evidence tends in the direction of deliberate
misstatement. How should we think about the appropriate consequence? Not
every journalistic transgression deserves the career equivalent of a death
penalty. A single episode of plagiarism, for example, should be judged in
the context of an entire career — punished severely but, in certain cases,
with a sanction short of dismisssal.

In Williams’s case, some thoughtful observers argued that his transgression
did not rise to the level of firing (or resignation) because it did not go
to the essence of his job — “not a fundamental part of his primary
responsibilities,” as the New York Times’ David Carr put it.

This analysis misperceives the role of news anchor — as NBC itself
recognized: “As Managing Editor and Anchor of ‘Nightly News,’ Brian has a
responsibility to be truthful and to uphold the high standards of the news
division at all times,” Deborah Turness, the president of NBC News, said in
a statement.

To the extent that the job is more than merely reading words off a
teleprompter, it is to be the institutional voice of trust and reason,
reassuring in a crisis, the ultimate reliable narrator. When issues of
trustworthiness become a distraction, the anchor loses his credibility, and
therefore his perch.

Some discussion of Williams’s fate has involved his central role at NBC and
whether the network could “afford” to lose its most recognizable franchise.
This is the network version of “too big to fail” — that Williams is too
important to can. I see it the opposite way: Williams’s elevated status
subjects him to a higher standard of behavior, and more rigorous
consequences. The face of NBC News cannot afford to be so scarred.

Thinking about Williams requires grappling with the consequence of Hillary
Clinton’s untrue story of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia. If I am
correct in concluding that Williams should not continue in the anchor role
at NBC, must I then believe that Clinton is unqualified to be president? If
I distinguish between the two, is that because of pro-Clinton, pro-Democrat
bias? Would I judge more harshly were a Republican candidate involved?

Here, I can only offer my best effort to analyze the two cases objectively.
Clinton’s sniper-fire statement is, no doubt, a blot on her record. It is
not a disqualifying blot. Journalists come to the job with only their
credibility to offer. We expect less from politicians in terms of total
truth-telling. Spin is part of the business model. You could legitimately
decide that Clinton’s sniper story is disqualifying, but you must then deal
with Ronald Reagan witnessing the liberation of Nazi death camps.

Either way, the untenable nature of Williams’s position becomes even
clearer. Imagine that Clinton’s sniper story becomes a campaign issue. How
does Williams, in the anchor chair, comfortably report that news, even
after six months away?